The present disclosure relates generally to electronic display brightness control and, more particularly, to brightness control for an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Flat panel displays, such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs) organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, are commonly used in a wide variety of electronic devices, including such electronic devices as televisions, computers, and hand-held devices (e.g., cellular telephones, audio and video players, gaming systems, and so forth). Such display panels typically provide a flat display in a relatively thin package that is suitable for use in a variety of electronic goods. In addition, such devices typically use less power than comparable display technologies, making them suitable for use in battery-powered devices or in other contexts where it is desirable to reduce power usage.
Electronic displays are not always used at a full brightness setting, but rather may operate at variable brightness levels. For example, since LCDs are backlit, brightness may be adjusted by increasing or decreasing an amount of light emitted by a backlight. The amount of light emitted by the backlight corresponds to the amount of light emitted through each of pixel of the LCD. On the other hand, OLED displays do not rely on a backlight, but rather each OLED may emit light individually. Thus, the brightness of an OLED display may be varied by changing the power supplied to each OLED.
While increasing or decreasing the amount of power may increase or decrease the amount of light emitted by each OLED, the precise amount of light emitted by each OLED may vary according to a nonlinear function. As such, many techniques for adjusting the brightness of OLED screens have conventionally involved performing complex calculations on image data to ensure that when a brightness-adjusted image is displayed on the OLED display, each pixel displays a proper color and brightness. For example, a nonlinear transfer function may be applied to framebuffer-encoded image data and a dimming value divided from the image data. This dimmed image data then may be converted to an analog OLED pixel brightness control signal that is used by the OLED display to output light from OLED pixels. These conventional techniques may consume excessive system resources and/or may be incompatible with existing LCD brightness control mechanisms.